Tory party receives donation from firm that got wind turbine grant

The Conservatives have been given almost £140,000 by a company that last year won a government grant to help it build a wind turbine part factory.

Offshore Group Newcastle, a major supplier to the offshore energy industry, handed donations to the Tories after being awarded a £4.5m subsidy towards making steel foundations for wind turbines.

The company, whose ultimate owners are based in the British Virgin Islands, announced it had won the grant from the regional growth fund in mid-October.

It subsequently started donating to the Conservatives, with the party recording £139,655 of donations between November and August this year.

It is understood a board member of the company also had the opportunity to meet Tory ministers when the company paid to attend a business event at the Conservative party conference that autumn.

In addition to the donations from Offshore Group Newcastle, one of its executives, Alexander Temerko, has separately given more than £200,000 to the party in cash and auction prizes since February 2012. Temerko is the former number two at oil company Yukos and successfully won the right to stay in the UK in 2005 after a judge found Russia’s attempt to extradite him on fraud charges was politically motivated.

Offshore Group Newcastle received the grant from the Department for Business, Innovation Skills’s regional growth fund as part of a total £50m investment in its new plant.

It is planning to produce steel foundations for offshore wind turbine generators at its Hadrian’s Yard in Wallsend, Tyne and Wear – a historic former shipbuilding site.

At the time, it described the grant as a “vote of confidence from theDepartment of Business, Innovation and Skills” that would allow the North East to “share in the benefit with the creation of 1,000 long-term local jobs”.

Last night the company told the Telegraph the grant is “totally independent” from any political activities. It added: “OGN operates as a UK company and pays taxes in accordance with UK taxation legislation.”

A spokesman for BIS said bids to the Regional Growth Fund, which awarded the funding, are assessed by a separate advisory panel.

“All bids to the regional growth fund are stringently evaluated against the objectives of creating sustainable employment, rebalancing the economy and delivering value for money, and are independently assessed by an advisory panel headed by Lord Heseltine,” he said. “BIS is absolutely committed to transparency and adherence to due process in every application for public funding.”

A Conservative party spokesman said all its donations are “fully and transparently declared to the Electoral Commission and published on their website.”